Breathe
by Radio-Blaze
Summary: Many would call it a mall. A strange one that reached into the earth instead of towards the sky. What would Jay call it? She would call it a death trap. (Modern AU based off of a dream)


A very odd modern AU oneshot coming right up. This was originally inspired by an odd dream I had and sort of evolved into something Conspiracy 365ish almost (if anyone's read those books, I love you). This is also on my tumblr.

For this AU, Robin shall be referred to as Jay.

* * *

Jay liked to consider herself a woman of composure. Someone who could stay collected and calm her friends in a crisis.

Then again, reality didn't seem to care about what she liked to think about herself.

She leaned against the wall of the small hallway, fingers fumbling over the screen of her phone as her gaze switched from the screen below to the few people wandering in and out of the restrooms. She was fine as long as there were a few people around. She was fine as long as she wasn't _alone_ with anyone.

She let out a frustrated huff as her fingertips missed the numbers on the screen, and her heart pounded a furious drum beat in her ears. Absentmindedly, one hand reached up to rub her sore throat, feeling the ache of the bruise that the hood of her sweater kept hidden.

Perhaps she should've called security, but after seeing _her_ talking to them...that option was tossed out of the window.

She hurriedly pressed the call button and practically slammed the phone against her ear. She bit her lip as she listened to the ringtone go off.

' _I knew I shouldn_ _'_ _t have come to this death trap honestly who decided that this mall should be underground-_ _'_

Sudden static. Again.

She yanked the phone away from her ear and hurriedly typed a message to Lissa.

Message Failure.

 _She'd_ somehow cut her service.

 _'Gods help me.'_

She pulled up her hood and looked outside the hall. She scanned over the food court. There were dozens upon dozens of brightly dressed people, but there was no one with an elaborate violet hoodie or ruffled, short pale blue hair.

 _'Where did she go?'_

She slipped out from the hall and edged around the crowd. She just needed to find Sumia and Stahl and Chrom and Lissa. And never go off on her own again. Even if it was for books.

 _'I knew I shouldn't have left them what kind of idiot would just venture off on their own-'_

Surely they would've noticed how long she was gone. Maybe her friends were checking the bookstore - they knew her well enough to head there first should she disappear.

That meant she had to get up three floors without _her_ noticing.

 _Joy_.

She never stopped scanning the crowd. Jay forced her tense muscles to relax as she slid her hands into her pockets, for her expression to become spacey, a bit out of touch with reality. She even placed one earbud in her ears, though she didn't play any music - she needed to be completely aware of her surroundings and look completely unaware at the same time. With every step, she mentally kicked herself. Why didn't she bring some kind of hair dye, or colored contacts, or even a different pair of clothes - _anything_ to throw off that person for just a few precious seconds? Even under the large embrace of her old sweater, she felt obscenely exposed.

She caught a glimpse of a dark jacket, the same shade as her own.

Her lower lip slid a little under her teeth. Her fingers twitched in her pockets as the fingerprint-shaped bruises on her throat seemed to pulse painfully.

She let her pace quicken, just a little bit. She wandered towards the escalator to the next floor. If she could make it to the top floor, she could get out of this death trap and call the police or something. When she was about 100 feet from the escalator, she stopped. There was a group of boys joking around, and one of them had the same purple hoodie and pale blue hair.

She turned away from the escalator as quickly as she could.

 _'Oh gods oh gods there are more of them and they're blocking off the exits I can't do this right now I need to get out of here -'_

"Jay? Is that you?"

It took every ounce of her self control not to whirl around and panic.

"Oh, hi Say'ri!" She greeted. She tried her best to keep her smile from looking manic with paranoia.

Say'ri was inside one of the stores, looking through some fancier clothing. Jay found herself entering the store so that she wouldn't have to shout.

Say'ri returned her greeting with a polite dip of her head. Jay was never close to Say'ri, but they been put together to work on small projects in school, and Sayri's willingness to work with others and her focused mindset had put her in Jay's good graces. Acquaintances, at best.

But there was safety in numbers.

"What are you doing here, Jay? I did not think you were the shopping type."

"Oh, I just came here with a few friends, but I kinda went off on my own to see the bookstore," she admitted, shuffling her boots. "Nothing special, really."

 _'_ "Nothing special" _. Yeah.'_

"And you?" She asked.

"I have a party to attend this weekend," she replied. "A family friend is holding a birthday celebration, and seeing as how our families are so close, it would bode ill for me to attend in anything but my finest."

"Do you mind if I stayed with you for a while? I kinda lost my friends and my phone is dead, but I know they'll pass this place on the way to the food court. I'd offer to help you out, but my sense of fashion is really lacking, to be honest."

Say'ri blinked, but her surprised expression was gone as soon as it had appeared. "Why of course!"

Even while Jay followed Say'ri through the aisles, she kept an eye on the doorway. She hadn't lied when she said she'd been looking for her friends, but there was a little more to this than that. She still had to keep an eye out for _her_ \- or _them_ if the boy was a part of it, and she would be surprised if he wasn't.

She glanced at the desk. Her blood ran cold.

"Um, Say'ri, where's the cashier?"

Say'ri looked to the desk. "Hmm. I do not know. Perhaps she is in the room at the back of the store?"

 _'Or not.'_

Now that she noticed, there was only her and Say'ri in the store. There were no other customers.

Jay looked at the doorway in time to catch a glimpse of a violet-hooded woman enter. She felt the blood drain from her face.

"Say'ri? Can we please leave?"

"Jay, is something wrong?"

"Can we please leave _now_?" She insisted.

"Oh gods, Jay, you look faint!" To Jay's surprise, Say'ri brought her to a wall behind a shelf, where she couldn't see the doorway. "Here, sit down and I will get you help-"

"No, no, we need to leave _right now_ -"

Something told her to duck, and a clothing rack flew right over her head.

"What the-"

"Say'ri, _get down_!"

It didn't make a difference.

A metal rack came down right over Sayri's head, and she crumpled to the floor with a sickening thump.

Before Jay could do anything, a body slammed into her and she fell to the ground. She felt a pair hands latch around her throat and squeeze.

She felt the air being pressed from her throat. Her lungs burned. Her skin ached as the fingers around her neck pressed into the bruises. She gaped, eyes tearing and blurring the image of the pair of eyes above her, burning the same shade that Jay saw every day she looked in the mirror.

 _"I'm surprised you managed to squeeze your way out last time."_

She flailed, kicked, punched - anything to escape. Nothing worked.

 _"Not so lucky this time, are you?"_

Black spots danced jovially in front of her eyes as the faint screaming in the background began to fade away.

 _"Well, I've had my fun."_

Suddenly, the hands pulled away. She gulped down air and felt like she was swallowing needles. Her vision painfully sharpened and blurred and sharpened with her hearing.

And then her double's hands wrapped around her temples. The back of her head was lifted an inch or two off of the cold ground.

"Goodbye, defect."

And with an explosion of pain, her head came down.

* * *

Even when people screamed and pushed and shoved around him, trying to pull him into the crowd running in the opposite direction, Chrom forced his way into the store.

He had seen Jay here - both her and an odd, red-eyed doppelgänger.

"Jay?!" He called. "Jay, are you in here?!"

He searched in the aisles for her, and he found her and his schoolmate Say'ri.

Both were lying on the ground, completely still.

His breath caught in his throat. He had to get them both out of here.

He pulled out his phone and called 911.

What happened then was a blurry mess of panic and worry and fear. Say'ri had been taken away on a different stretcher, but he couldn't leave Jay. He'd never seen her so still, so completely unmoving. She was always so twitchy - she was always either absentmindedly kicking her legs or tapping her fingers against her thigh or shuffling her feet or shifting in her seat or _something_.

Now, he stared at the hospital bed she was lying in, and she didn't move a muscle.

 _'What happened to her why does she look so why did I ever let her out of my sight I'm an absolute failure this has to be my fault who else's fault could it be?'_

Hours later, he received the news. Say'ri was dead, her skull bashed with a clothing rack. From what witnesses claimed, Jay was to blame. He didn't believe a word of it.

Days later, Jay's eyes fluttered open. A miracle, the doctors claimed. His hands clasped hers and he actually found himself crying, thanking every god he knew that she was alive and breathing and awake and she was _here_.

Seconds later, from the way she had pulled back from his touch, from the way she gaped at his tears and the hospital room, he felt sickness and absolute sorrow crawling down into his stomach.

"Who the hell are you?! Where the hell am I?!"

* * *

Yeah, this was a weird and confusing one, and based off of one of my personal favorite dreams. I mean do more of these little dream oneshots, and I might even continue this storyline at some point, I don't know. Anyways, hope you guys enjoy!


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